Activities · Emoji 0.6
🎮Video Game Emoji
It generally means “video game” or “gaming.” People use it to show they’re talking about playing a game or to express their love for video games.
The 🎮 emoji is a video game controller.
- Unicode
- U+1F3AE
- Released
- 2010
- Shortcode
- :video_
game: - Skin tones
- No
01 — Meaning
What does the 🎮 Video Game emoji mean?
People search for this character under a lot of different names, and the ones we have collected number 4.
02 — Platforms
Video Game emoji on iPhone, Android, WhatsApp and X
The character is always U+1F3AE — but every vendor draws it their own way. This is what your video game looks like to the person on the other side.
See the whole set the way each system draws it — iPhone emojis, Android emojis, WhatsApp emojis and Discord emojis.
03 — Copy & codes
Video Game emoji copy and paste
Tap any value to copy it. The emoji itself works everywhere, the escapes are for your code, and the shortcode Slack and Discord expect is :video_game:.
All emoji copy and paste →In your code
Pick the notation your language wants. They all resolve to the video game, code point U+1F3AE.
04 — How to type
How to type the 🎮 Video Game emoji
Every system hides the emoji key somewhere else. Here is where, plus the raw codes for U+1F3AE when there is no key at all.
05 — Download
Video Game emoji PNG and SVG
Grab the video game as transparent PNG or SVG. Each system ships its own drawing, and the licence stays with the vendor, all 9 of them.
Emoji PNG library →
Apple
Google
Twitter / X
Facebook
WhatsApp
06 — Combinations
Video Game emoji combinations
Ready-made combos built around video game for bios, captions and comments. Tap to copy.
All combinations →Want two emojis fused into one sticker instead of set side by side? Emoji Kitchen does that with 🎮, and there are more ready-made pairs in emoji combinations and aesthetic emoji combos.
08 — In conversation
What 🎮 means from a girl or a guy
Same emoji, different intent depending on who sent it and what came before.
09 — Apps
What 🎮 means on TikTok, WhatsApp and Discord
Chat apps do not change U+1F3AE, they change what it looks like and what people take it to mean.
11 — Difference
🎮 vs 🎲 — what is the difference?
Two emojis that get mixed up constantly. They are different characters with different names.
Unicode name: Video Game
Code: U+1F3AE · added 2010
Shortcode: :video_game:
It generally means “video game” or “gaming.”
Unicode name: Game Die
Code: U+1F3B2 · added 2010
Shortcode: :game_die:
Generally, when someone sends you the 🎲 emoji, they’re signaling that something is random or depends on luck.
12 — History
Where the 🎮 Video Game emoji came from
This one is older than Unicode emoji: Japanese carriers were drawing it on their handsets years before the standard existed, which it finally joined in 2010.
Same character every time — U+1F3AE never changed. Only the drawing did, and only because each vendor redraws its own set. Someone on an older phone still sees the older picture.
Long before Unicode had emoji, Japanese carriers shipped their own picture sets.
🎮 existed there as
NTT DoCoMo E68B, KDDI au E4C6.
Those codes are why it survived into the standard at all — Unicode had to keep Japanese messages readable.
Video Game was approved as U+1F3AE and shipped in Emoji 0.6 (2010). Emoji 0.6 is the original 2010 batch that came over from the Japanese sets.
Every vendor keeps its own artwork, so 🎮 is redrawn by Apple, Google, Twitter / X, Facebook, OpenMoji, Samsung, Microsoft, WhatsApp, JoyPixels. The character you send never changes — only the picture does.
13 — FAQ